Pieces of Camden (Hole-Hearted #1) (9 page)

My heart leaps out of my chest, and I smile up at his beautiful face. I press my lips against his square jaw. “I love you, too.”

“You’re my best friend. And, now, you’re my girl?” It comes out sounding like a question, so I nod. “I also love your parents. What they’ve done for me…” he trails off. “I respect them, and I respect you. If I were to go to your bed right now…” He stares back at me without finishing his sentence, and I feel myself blush. “Yeah.” He laughs, blowing air on my face.

“What if I want that, too?” I ask once I’m able to speak again.

Camden lets out another long whoosh of air on my face. “I want you, Yan. I want you so bad.” He manages to hug me closer to him. “But not now.” His voice pleads for me to understand. “When we’re older and not living with your parents.”

I pull back and pout, pulling my bottom lip into my mouth. “That’s a long time from now.”

“You’re killing me.” He laughs, his intensity softening. “I’ve had a lot of wrongs in my life. You’re my only right, and I want to do right by you.”

My heart swells while my body tingles at his words.

“Can we at least watch TV, or is that wrong, too?” The tease falls from my lips and he narrows his eyes at me. “I can’t sleep.” I shrug and sway my hips as I walk to the couch.

My eyes flutter open when the sound of my dad slamming a cabinet door shut wakes me from my sleep. I sit up straight so that I’m no longer leaning on Camden’s shoulder. He’s still asleep, and I kick his foot. When his eyes pop open, I massage the base of my neck.

I can’t believe we fell asleep like that. I thought I’d be able to coax him into my bed, but he proved to be as stubborn as me, so we eventually passed out on the couch.

I guess that means I won. Kind of.

Without saying a word, Camden and I pour cereal into our bowls and then join my parents at the kitchen table. Before taking my first bite, I feel Camden’s eyes on me. I glance up and when he looks away, I smile.

My mom coughs loudly, and we all turn our attention to her.

“I think we should set some ground rules.” She looks at my dad, who looks back at her, confused. “Cam, you live with us. You are as much a part of this family as the rest of us.”

Camden looks down to his bowl on the table and plays with the spoon.

“Son,” she says firmly. She stays quiet until his eyes meet hers. “We love you. We trust you. But you two can’t date—at least, not until you’re older.”

My mouth hangs open, and for the first time in my life, words seem alien to me.

“You’re dating?” my dad asks, his voice mirroring the shock on his face.

“No,” Camden says too quickly. He looks at me with a guilt-ridden expression on his face. “I mean, I like Yan. No, I love Yan.” He clears his throat while his eyes nervously roam over the table. “But nothing happened.”

My dad slams his hand on the table, and we all jump. Camden’s face loses color, but his eyes steady, staring holes into the kitchen table.

“Cam wouldn’t let anything happen because he loves you guys,” I say, trying to help the situation. I put my hand on my dad’s arm and watch his eyes soften.

“Cam,” my dad says and Camden finally looks up at him. “There’s no one else Carmen and I would trust with our daughter but you. If ever there were two people meant for each other, it’s you two.” He meets Camden’s eyes until understanding flashes across his face, and Camden nods. “But you’re still young.”

“This is what I was afraid of when you moved in with us,” my mom whispers. “You two are too close. I told you this would happen, Santiago.” My mom turns her narrowed eyes toward my dad, who smiles sheepishly back at her.

“Carmencita, have you forgotten how we were when we were their age?” my dad asks. “I knew you were the one when we were just ten, remember? I bought you a ring and asked you to marry me.”

My mom blushes, spinning her cup of coffee on the table. “It was different.” Her voice is stern, but her eyes are already losing their anger. “We didn’t live together.”

My dad reaches over the table and traces my mom’s knuckles with a single finger. His eyes seek out Camden’s, and he doesn’t speak until they’re staring at each other.

“If you want to date other people, you can,” my dad says, making me pale.

“I don’t,” Camden answers quickly.

“Neither do I,” I say.

My dad knowingly smiles back at us.

“No more touching”—my dad leans forward, putting his elbows on the table—“holding hands, or hugging. When you watch TV, you can’t sit close to each other. Once you graduate high school, you can start dating. We’re trusting you, okay?”

I want to argue with him, to tell him how unfair he’s being, but I bite my tongue. Saying anything to oppose them right now would only make things worse, so I let Camden speak for both of us.

Camden holds my dad’s gaze but looks away to include my mom. “When I’m older, I’m going to ask you for your permission to marry Yan.”

I inhale loudly and cover my mouth as I feel my eyes water.

“Until then, I won’t do wrong by her or by you. I swear it.”

“Our answer is yes,” my dad says. He looks at my mom for confirmation. “When you ask, our answer will be yes.”

ELEVEN

CAMDEN

A hopeless fraud. An undercover mess.

Pastor Floyd walked into my hospital room only five minutes ago, and already, I can hear his accusations. I flinch inwardly while I do my best to keep an outward appearance of normalcy in front of Santiago and Carmen.

They don’t see me, how I’m sewn together with lies and disappointment. But Pastor Floyd does.

He was there the day God cursed me.

God had saved me from my parents. He’d saved me from the earthquake. Not because He’d had some divine plan for me but simply because He could.

I’m a puppet, and He’s my puppeteer.

I was in a coma for three months after the earthquake, being fed painkillers the entire time. When I awoke to find I’d lost everything once again, there wasn’t an opiate out there that could diminish the pain. Sleep left me while anxiety racked my body.

My doctors did their best to help but refused to do the one thing I’d begged for—to put me in a medically induced coma until I died. I’d asked, even offered them my inheritance.

Fucking doctors with their stupid morals.

Pastor Floyd was determined to help me though, and that was how he became my drug dealer.

Painkillers. Anti-anxiety pills.

He got them all for me, on top of what I was already being prescribed. It held me over while I searched for Jocelyn Marie and Yvon for five years in Haiti.

But then I came back, empty-handed. I added alcohol to the mix and made myself a concoction that finally took away the pain.

At least for a short while.

Pills gave me a light, showed me a destination I hadn’t yet traveled. For many years, my soul had been burdened by pain. And anger. Too much anger. Pills numbed me to those emotions and became my best friend, reliable and always by my side.

But pills bestowed other gifts on me as well. Shakes, nightmares, cold sweats, and visions I never want to see again even if it means giving up my eyes.

They controlled me, ravished me, and possessed me.

They lied and manipulated me, telling me things would get better but they never did.

The anger built until my limbs trembled from it. So, I drank and took more pills—my faithful friends that would follow me past the grave. Self-respect and dignity were long forgotten. I’d been stripped bare without any morality left by my side.

I tried to put up some sort of resistance to the pills, but my will slipped away, destroying me as easily as the emotions I’d worked so hard to hide from.

I’m a failure at life—not because I try to be, but because that’s where my talents lie. In failure and mistakes. I carry out my own punishment, making my body toxic to myself. Life has beaten me, cutting a wider gash into my already torn heart and delivering the slowest kind of death.

I can’t go back and undo what’s already been done. But I want to move forward, so I can have Yanelys. So the lonely planet of my heart can find its way back home. So the screaming in my head quiets down. I’m tired of drifting, of standing still, of stepping over landmines, secretly hoping one detonates.

I want to be saved.

And she’s the only one who can save me from myself. Her tenderness is irresistible and healing. She’s the only one.

Will she see me? Can she look past my abandonment and deception, past the rough exterior, and peer inside me? Layer by layer, strip me of my defenses until all that’s left is me.

Will she find anything worth saving?

“This is your family then?” Pastor Floyd asks, ruthlessly snapping me back to the reality of my hospital room.

Pastor Floyd stands at the foot of my bed while Santiago and Carmen sit by my bedside. Pastor Floyd’s presence overpowers the whole room, and I shrink away from the smile on his face.

“Yes,” Santiago beams, his eyes dancing with pride.

I squirm away from the undeserved pride. Carmen, who always sees too much, curiously eyes me. She exhales a small sigh when my eyes dart away from hers.

With his hand outstretched for a shake, Santiago takes two long strides toward Pastor Floyd, and a moment of silent understanding passes through them when contact is made.

Both men care for me, probably see themselves as father figures of sorts. But both care in different ways.

Santiago would never have permitted me to take painkillers after my injuries had healed. And I would have listened to him.

Pastor Floyd, with his tender heart, only wanted to help, and I let him, knowing full well where the path would lead. My mom, being an addict, had strengthened my resolve and fueled my fate. When Pastor Floyd tried to reason with me, to get me to stop, I didn’t listen. Instead, I pressured him, manipulated him, until he caved and got me more drugs.

“I’ve heard a lot about you,” Pastor Floyd tells Santiago and Carmen.

Carmen rests her hand on my shoulder. “You’re the pastor who’s taken care of our boy?”

Pastor Floyd nods.

“Thank you,” she says.

There are a lot of things I could say. They hover on the tip of my tongue but remain unsaid, withering in the stagnant air. My tortured soul hears through the silence though, and the hands from my punishment strangle me.

Santiago’s phone chirps a nineties pop song from the Spice Girls, and I chuckle at his embarrassment when he scurries away with the phone.

“Yan,” Carmen explains and I jerk away from the sound of Yanelys’s name.

My face begins to tingle, the first sign of an upcoming migraine, and I push the button for morphine. Pastor Floyd shakes his head, disappointment dripping from his eyes, but I ignore him when I see a small drip fall.

Migraines have become a side effect to living, and since the earthquake in Haiti, I’ve been graced with them on a regular basis.

“Say that again!” Santiago barks into the phone.

Everyone in the room turns their attention to him.

Santiago raises a finger at us, his way of letting us know he’s too busy to speak to us. After a lot of head-shaking and grunting, he finally says, “I’m on my way.”

Carmen crosses the room and places a delicate hand on his arm, and he turns to her.

Santiago rubs his hands across his face and grunts. “Yanelys is in jail.”

TWELVE

YANELYS

Camden had pushed us away, yet life or fate or God heaved him back toward us. I should have seen it coming, but I was blinded by the comfortable ease of my life.

His world isn’t for me. His rejection can’t hurt me anymore. I’ve covered those wounds with gritty sand and pretty lies. But that doesn’t mean I don’t still care. That I don’t still see what even he can’t.

His mom did this. Maybe it’s intuition or simply because I know Camden and the life he led better than anyone else, but I’m certain of it.

Fueled by assumptions, I leave the hospital. I go to the building Camden had been found in and search alleyways and other abandoned buildings nearby until I find her sleeping under a bridge by a small river.

She’s covered in dirt, her thinning hair matted. Her presence slithers over my skin like a disease. Much smaller than I remember, she doesn’t intimidate me anymore.

When I awake her, somber silence passes between us, but then her vacant eyes recognize me. She stands and her lips turn into a malicious smile, her eyes calculating me through the haze of sleep and drugs.

“He’s just like me.” His mom laughs.

Spite and conceit clamp their claws into me, wrapping me tightly.

“He’s everything you hate.” A scornful smile twists her lips, her self-righteousness lacing through her words.

“You set the building he was in on fire,” I accuse, my rattled nerves colliding against one another in my chest.

“He prefers pills over any other drug.” She scratches a scab on her chin, and the grime under her once manicured fingernails repulses me.

“You tried to kill your own son!” I stalk toward her and shove her hard, making her stumble to the ground. My breaths heave in and out of my chest, but I stand firm, looking down at her.

“Camden’s nothing to me!” She pushes herself off the concrete floor but loses her balance and falls. Her eyes narrow, pinning me with a purposeful stare. “He’s nothing to you either. He’s better off dead before he spends all of
my
money on
his
addiction.”